


July 10: Quicksilver

by LupusScintilla (inkandblade)



Series: July Prompt Table [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alludes to Mpreg, Alpha Scott McCall, Beta Derek Hale, Beta Liam Dunbar, Beta Peter Hale, Camp Nanowrimo, Incorrect use of Mythology, Lots of blood (but not gore), M/M, Near Fatal Wounds, Not Beta Read, Peter being Peter, Prompt Fic, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Werewolf Mates, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 08:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11460123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandblade/pseuds/LupusScintilla
Summary: “Whoa,” Liam said, then let out a squeak as he scrambled back a little from the edge of the sofa where Stiles was lying. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”





	July 10: Quicksilver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siriusstuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusstuff/gifts).



“Whoa,” Liam said, then let out a squeak as he scrambled back a little from the edge of the sofa where Stiles was lying. The material covered cushions under him were absolutely sodden with blood. Stiles had made all kinds of ridiculous innuendo about just how much he adored the three-seater when he’d helped Derek pick it out. It had only been in the house a couple of weeks, so the store still probably carried the line. This one was getting tossed out as soon as possible, but at least Stiles wouldn’t have time to mourn its loss or the hand he had in it. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”

That wasn’t a question Derek had expected from the kid; Liam had two other wolves with blue eyes in the room with him and he’d never shown that kind of disrespect. There was very little doubt that Stiles’ would be marked with blue the same way that Jackson was. Derek couldn’t help the prickling feeling of offense that rushed over him on behalf of them, and him. 

“Now, now, Derek,” Peter stood and walked passed Derek’s pile of books and notes and leaned over the back of the sofa to look at Stiles. “I don’t think our young Pack mate is referring to what has your hackles up.” Derek heard Stiles move, and groan, and was at his uncle’s side in a flash. 

They watched, waiting for Stiles to blink again. His heart rate said he was still asleep, but it was likely he was dreaming, urged on by the wolf he now carried inside him. His eyes were racing each other through REM and his lids lifted through the chase.

“Oh, my. I knew it would be something, but I didn’t think it could be that.” Peter sounded predatory, but his scent said he was actually more fascinated than attracted. 

Derek was glad the sofa would be getting burned. He sank his claws into it. “You didn’t think what would be what?” Stiles’ eyes, what they could see of them as his lashes fluttered in his sleep, glowed like that of a normal wolf’s, but were almost white. “Now, Peter.”

Peter stepped back and put his hands up in front of him, even as he smirked. Derek turned reluctantly from watching Stiles to instead making certain of what his uncle was doing.

Derek would break Peter’s legs if he had to; he'd make the man stay until he’d explained.

Peter looked around Derek and said, still with a smile in his voice, “Liam, sweetheart, you need to text everyone in the Pack, wolf and human and everyone else, and tell them to stay away if they are married or otherwise seriously attached to another or others.” 

“Um.” Derek could practically hear the cogs in the kid’s head. He wasn’t stupid at all, but he didn’t generally like taking orders if they weren’t from Scott. What he could smell coming off Derek and Peter seemed to have made him decide not to push it tonight, though. “Okay.”

“Excellent. I’d do it myself, but you young ones are so much faster with such things.” Peter’s voice went from slightly smarmy to serious in the next word, despite his expression not changing. “Make sure they understand. Scott will want to argue, but he really, really needs to listen.”

Derek growled under his breathe. “Peter. Explain. Now.” His uncle wasn’t moving towards the door, but Derek put himself closer to it anyway, just in case Peter decided to try to flee.

“I’m not going anywhere, Derek. And, just as most of the others need to stay away from here, you need to calm down. Any upset wolf is going to be a problem for any new bite, but Stiles, I suspect, will be particularly susceptible to your emotions.” He waved a hand toward the table Derek had been at before. “Let’s sit, and I’ll explain as much as I can before Stiles wakes.”

Derek sat, closing his eyes a moment and focussing on Stiles heartbeat. It had been weak when Scott first bit him, but even then it was steady. Now it was faster, and smoother. There wasn’t much time if Peter wasn’t just being overly dramatic. “So?”

“My want to bite Stiles when I was an Alpha was not simply just as he was loyal to a fault and smarter than most of the others put together. You felt it, too. Scott likely feels it but thinks it’s just because he considers Stiles his brother.” Peter looked down at his own hands. He was rubbing the fingers of one against the heel of the other. He looked back up and over to the sofa. “Stiles’ spark calls to an Alpha. It begs to be taken and made more, made wolf. That innate magic, rather than making him immune like Lydia, gives him the potential to be more than even a born wolf can be.”

Derek’s claws were out again and he was having to count in his head to stop himself from reaching over and swiping at his uncle’s throat. He’d felt the draw towards Stiles, but he’d always thought it was for a completely different reason. It didn’t change that this had been kept a secret. “You didn’t think to tell us this? You didn’t think to warn anyone that biting him might,” he growled again. “What do his eyes mean, Peter?”

Peter put his palms flat on the table. “It could have been several things, or nothing but a bitten wolf with the strength of a born one. There was an equal possibility that his system would accept the bite easier, or reject it faster than average. Deaton knew this. I’m fairly sure that Stiles did, too. A year or two ago I spied him with a pile of texts that all but confirmed it.” Peter sat back in the chair. “He didn’t discuss it with us then, or later. He apparently didn’t need us to know. I have no doubt that he weighed his options, however. He was conscious when you asked him if he wanted Scott to bite him, even if he’d long passed out by the time we got them in the same place.”

There wasn’t an actual answer in all of that. Derek started to stand, pushing back his chair and reaching forward, “What. Do. They. Mean?”

Peter actually bared his throat. Derek blinked and pulled himself back. He sat down fully and pressed his palms into his thighs and counted again. 

“It will be difficult to see the true color of his eyes until he’s fully awake and shifted. A truly pale version of his wolf, so a blue lighter than even Jackson’s human eyes, would mean that he’s kept his spark despite becoming wolf. He wouldn’t be able to deal with ash or wolfsbane, of course, but his other abilities with runes and wards and the like would remain. The other possibility is far more unusual, and the reason I asked Liam to send that text.”

Liam was still sending that text, by the sounds of it. “Scott’s not happy, but I think it’ll be okay for awhile at least? Just after he got back to the others they found the other half of the nest. Clean up will take forever without Stiles’ magic helping.” 

Derek looked up at Liam and nodded an acknowledgement, then turned back to Peter. “No married or attached people,” he prodded.

Peter smirked again. “If Stiles’ eyes are silver, then he’s an Epsilon. He’ll never tilt his neck to an Alpha, and he’ll fight, and kill, for the right to take the Mate he finds most suitable. His bite will turn only that person if they aren’t already a wolf, and it will create an Alpha out of them if he or she is already a wolf.”

Derek’s memories of his childhood had been creeping back into his consciousness for months. Peter’s description nudged the edge of one now. “And he must have already met that person or he wouldn’t be turning this way.”

Liam squeaked again, this time it had more of a questioning sound to it. Derek turned and looked at the kid, and felt Peter doing the same thing. “Magical mates? Why did you make me argue with Scott for ten minutes via text, then? Shouldn’t we just keep the women away?”

The scent coming from Peter was tinged with some of his old, lecherous self. “Oh, my dear boy. Widen your mind. If being bitten by Scott could make you turn furry and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, why would it not give Stiles a way to make babies with the person he chooses, no matter who they are?”

Liam’s jaw dropped, and he stepped backwards, finally settling into a chair instead of on the floor. “He’ll be able to…?” Even sitting he managed to mime a pregnant belly. He paled when Peter nodded, then asked, “How will we know if he’s found the right person?”

Derek stood and stepped closer to Stiles. His heartbeat was almost back to normal, now. His eyes were still madly sliding beneath his lids. It wouldn’t be long. 

Peter stepped up to the other end of the sofa. “Wolf history was written first by the Greeks. In their texts, the Epsilon was usually drawn as a representation of Mercury, their god of war. Epsilons are vicious fighters who will stop at nothing to claim their Mate, and then after to protect them, their family, and their Pack.” He looked down at Stiles, and then back up at Liam. “Humans tell us that the metal Mercury was named after the fastest moving planet in the solar system. We know that the chemist who discovered it was a werewolf who named the metal for his Epsilon mate.”

Derek could picture it in his mind. “Stiles’ eyes will…?” He wanted to see that. He could admit to himself that he mostly wanted to see it aimed at him, but he wanted to see it either way. 

“Yes, nephew. Whenever he looks at his Mate while shifted. It will be an honor for us all to see it.” 

“He won’t hurt us though, right?” Liam didn’t sound particularly scared, but there was a touch of it in his scent.

“No, child. None of the three of us are currently in a relationship. If he is an Epsilon, and his chosen Mate is with another person, no matter how strong their bond, he’ll feel compelled to claim them. But…” Peter looked at Stiles’ face, and for a moment Derek was reminded of Peter from before, Peter who sat happily with a child on his knee and read them tales, or at a puddle with them making mud pies. “I think that Stiles’ spark will not have chosen to create that kind of unpleasantness in the Pack.”

Derek watched as Stiles turned his head and pressed his face into the back of the sofa. “And his chosen Mate, what if they don’t respond?” 

“I’m sure his Mate will be delighted, Derek.” Peter’s hand came to rest of Derek’s shoulder. Derek turned just his head to see his uncle’s face. “There were no stories in our library of Epsilons taking their Mates by force, only freeing them from loveless unions.”

Stiles did more than turn, then, and Peter dropped his hand and stepped back. 

Stiles’ eyes were their regular warm brown when he finally opened them properly. “Derek?” He sat up and groaned. “Holy shit I feel like I’ve been hit by a fucking fleet of buses.” He ran his hand through his hair and dropped it down in front of his face, looking at the mostly dried blood that had flaked off onto his fingers and palm. “Oh. I’m.” He looked up into Derek’s eyes and said, “Dad’s so not going to be happy.” A book flew past Derek’s ear and Stiles batted it away before it hit him. “What the fuck, Peter?”

He growled it out and his eyes flashed and they were silver, not pale blue. He stared at Peter. Derek was inordinately pleased that the color was flat and unyielding.

Stiles put the book down on the back on the sofa and then said as he turned, “I thought you finally had your uncle on a proper leash, dude.” 

He blinked at Derek and Derek felt his heart start pounding and his face heat up and Stiles tilted his head then looked at Derek’s chest. 

“Holy shit, dude. That’s awesome. Is your pulse always that hard?”

Liam snickered this time, instead of squeaking. “I can send a ‘cancel that last order text’, then?”

♠

_ Quicksilver: [n] the element mercury; [adj] rapid or unpredictable in movement or change _

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt table I'm using can be found [here](https://inkandblade.tumblr.com/post/162231101861/my-july-campnano-is-set-500-words-minimum-per).
> 
> I didn't mean to almost kill Stiles two days in a row. My apologies. 
> 
> Dedicated to [Siriusstuff](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusstuff/) for all their repeated, thoughtful comments. Thank you.
> 
> EDIT: As was pointed out to me by LadyLeather in the comments, Mercury is not the Greek God of War, or a Greek anything. This was originally my idiocy and writing too late at night, and then after I Googled etc, I decided to leave it there. Peter is a manipulative fucker, and I like the idea that he would purposefully put misinformation in among what he's saying to see if A) people are listening or B) unschooled enough that he can play even more. Derek, I think, would know his uncle is fucking with him, but at the same time be too distracted by the situation/possibility that Stiles might be his Epsilon Mate, that he'd not think about it until later.


End file.
